Northampton County executive race getting nasty

April 24, 2013|Bill White

My Hall of Fame — for which I am seeking nominations over the next few weeks — includes several exhibits involving wild campaign fliers.

Tony Rybak's amazing "Diamond Johnny Callahan" flier, for example, featuring Rybak's mayoral opponent dressed like Col. Sanders, carrying a several-dip ice cream cone, walking on a road paved with packs of money and snake-eyes dice. To his left are the Steel blast furnaces, a casino sign that says, "Welcome to Fabulous FISCAL RUIN," the words "He's Gambling with Bethlehem's Future and YOU ARE THE LOSER!!!" and, most awesomely, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse galloping into the South Side.

I also have Northampton County Executive Glenn Reibman's "Ron Angle's record is arresting" flier, which photo-shopped opponent Angle behind bars. The famous "Sleeping Cop" ad in which state representative candidate Joe Uliana targeted opponent Jim Gregory with a photo of a fat policeman snoozing behind the wheel to remind voters, misleadingly, of the grounds for which Gregory once was fired by the Lower Saucon Police Department. And the truly amazing anti-gay ad with which congressional candidate Brian O'Neill tried to smear opponent Charlie Dent in the Republican primary.

The headline for my column about that campaign approach was "If you hate gay people, vote for him."

By the way, if anyone has an original copy of that ad, which shows two gaily attired young men walking hand-in-hand, I would love to have it for the Hall of Fame. Criminally, one of my colleagues threw the original away, so all I have is a copy.

In the mud-slinging continuum, Glenn Reibman's latest flier is worthy of my Hall, but falls short of a couple of those I mentioned. Certainly its nasty hint of desperation speaks to Reibman's standing in the three-man Democratic primary for county executive, in which he is the underdog despite — or more likely, because of — his two previous terms in the job. He's facing Callahan and Northampton County Councilman Lamont McClure.

This flier is a twist on Rybak's Diamond Johnny approach. The front shows Callahan's grinning visage, thrice, on a slot machine jackpot and the words "John Callahan … A Gamble Northampton County Can't Afford."

The flip side is where it gets crazy. On the right are a series of jokers from a deck of cards. In the middle are claims — some legitimate, some not so much — about Callahan's fiscal missteps, under the words "Callahan's Fuzzy Math and Bad Management."

The photo is what makes it, though. It shows a heavy-lidded, scowling Callahan look-alike, swilling booze and clutching five cards behind a stack of chips. "Northampton County Can't Afford to Bet the House on John Callahan," it says.

Don't vote for this guy. He's drunk!

It's hard to blame Reibman for attempting to keep the focus on his opponents' imagined shortcomings. It's amazing that he would ask voters to select him again after two terms of an administration marked by corruption, huge tax increases and a gaping vacuum in leadership.

My favorite moment in the most recent Democratic Northampton County executive debate came when Reibman, mostly ignored over the course of the Channel 69 "Business Matters" show, was asked whether it was true he had been holding a patronage job for eight years with the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission, the Island of Misfit Hacks.

It wasn't patronage, Reibman replied. He was appointed by Gov. Ed Rendell.

Oh, all right then. Glad he straightened that out.

I will agree that the alternatives deserve close scrutiny. Callahan can rightly point to Bethlehem's impressive progress in rebuilding itself in the post-Bethlehem Steel era, but he also has been tarnished not only by a couple of big budget deficits but by revelations of the fiscal flimflammery he used to cover them up. Throw in his poorly orchestrated congressional campaign against Charlie Dent and his unpopular support for a single trash hauler in Bethlehem — I agreed with him, but what do I know? — and you have a guy whose political outlook isn't what it was a few years back.

McClure was out front in the campaign to keep Gracedale in county hands, winning the loyalty of the Gracedale petitioners and many county union employees. But much as he would like this campaign to be all about Gracedale — and if that debate was any indication, he may succeed — his record on County Council has been marked by spotty attendance and consistently careful Profiles in Pandering.

Perhaps it's because of McClure's reputation as a lackluster campaigner, but Reibman has exclusively been targeting Callahan so far in his humorous press releases — one hinted preposterously that Callahan might be headed to jail — and fliers. Still, I would imagine he'll eventually drag McClure into the mud, too, if the polling doesn't turn around and his desperation mounts.